Thank You
by Eliza4892
Summary: Kate recieves help from an unlikely source. Spoilers for the second season finale.


It was night. She could tell because the sunlight that normally illuminated the hut she was confined in had all but disappeared save for the flickering of orange flames from the sole fire that was lit in the center of their expansive campsite. Her hut was about twenty feet from this center, and so she was never in complete darkness, a fact of surprisingly little comfort to her. The fire only allowed her to see the shadows of her captors as they moved about. It might be worse knowing when something's coming, waiting for it, instead of having it just sneak up on you.

Tonight, through half-open eyes, she watched the shadow that lingered by her tent, taking a few steps closer and then stopping, hesitating. This went on for over a minute, at the very least, before the figure made it to her door. A hand reached toward the door, before drawing back, and the form whispered, "Stay quiet."

After a moment's pause, the thin form slipped into the room. Kate tensed her muscles but remained silent. It was a woman—no, a girl—with hair a shade darker than her own, and nervous eyes, like she knew she was doing something that would end in severe punishment if she was caught. She recognized her as the girl who'd taken hold of her on the docks, several days ago.

"Who are you?" Kate asked, disregarding the girl's words, but keeping her voice low.

"I'm Alex." The girl answered, squatting down in front of Kate, bringing a wet rag to the newly closed wound on Kate's cheek, wiping off the blood crusted around it. She had pissed off the man taking her blood, earlier in the day, and had ended up with his knuckles on her skin.

Kate stopped her hand, briefly, catching her attention. "Alex? Rousseau's daughter?" Sayid's words about Danielle's missing daughter rushed back to her and looking at the teenager she could see some sort of resemblance, if she tried hard enough.

"Who?" The girl asked, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion. She didn't recognize her own mother's name. "Nevermind, you probably don't even know what you're saying right now." The cool water stung against the injury and Kate thought there was something else on the cloth, possibly alcohol. "You shouldn't have made him mad."

She shut her eyes as a yell pierced the air, followed by a pain-filled scream. She'd been waiting for it, had heard it off and on for the past hour. It was male in origin, and she couldn't begin to speculate if it was either Jack or Sawyer. Throughout the night there had been two different voices, that was definite, but which was which she couldn't tell. Either way, the thought made her sick and she bit back tears. With some effort, she focused in Alex's words, answering, "It was worth it."

"You're friend must be thinking the same thing." Alex said, pointedly, showing Kate exactly what good it was doing. "Tom says we don't need him, that we can do what we want with him."

Alex sure was talkative once you got her going. Informative too. "Why do they need me?" Kate asked, adding, "And why didn't you take us when you had us the first time? Why wait?"

The brunette shrugged, like she hadn't really thought about it. "We had other people we needed more."

It took only a second for Kate to guess who she was talking about. "Walt?"

"Yeah, him. He has a gift. We think you two also have a gift." The teenager glanced up into her eyes, studying them for a second before looking back to her work.

"What gift?" She was pretty sure she had nothing these people could use. Unless they were looking for people to build their army with. A small laugh almost escaped her throat, thinking about how stupid she'd seen Jack's idea to build an army just a few weeks ago.

"He won't stop asking about you." Alex was on a completely different topic now, apparently skilled in the art of avoidance. "Well both of them do, but one of them…they almost shot him."

Her heart hammered in her chest. "Who?" She reminded herself that Alex had said almost. Almost, as in thought about but didn't. "Almost shot who?"

Alex looked about for a moment, studying the walls of the hut intently. Kate guessed she was looking for the shadows too. There were none. Another scream sounded. "Do you want to see him?"

Kate's eyes widened, and she was taken aback by the girl's question. It didn't really matter who Alex spoke of, just that she might get some conformation that they were okay. "Yes."

"Okay, but just for a few minutes, I don't want them to know." Them seemed to be a separate group from Alex and Kate wondered why she didn't consider herself part of it. It was almost like Alex was their prisoner forced to work with them. Yes, the girl had been kidnapped, but she couldn't possibly remember that and that told Kate that there was some underlying injustice that she was unaware of. "I'll be right back."

She watched Alex slip out and lay back against the wall heavily, waiting. This was too good to be true. The captor, no matter how nice they seemed, rarely helped the captive. It was unnatural. But Kate pretended she didn't think that, that Alex would keep her word, and that all she had to do was wait.

Two minutes later, and after another pain filled sound filtered through the silent air, one that she hoped was the last, she saw shadows start up again. Two this time. There was soft mumbling from Alex, and a nod of the head from the second shadow, like they were afraid of speaking, before the second moved to enter. She closed her eyes again, ready for Henry Gale—she didn't know what his real name was, so she referred to him by his assumed name—or someone else equally as bad, to step inside.

There was nothing but silence in the seconds after the figure had arrived, and she wondered what was causing the delay.

"Kate."

It was whispered and hoarse, spoken from a voice that had screamed and yelled until the vocal cords were bruised and swollen, and it pained her to hear it. She refused to open her eyes, knowing his physical state must be so much worse than she'd imagined if he sounded like that.

Her lips quivered around the word, but she forced it out. "Jack."

Moments later strong arms wrapped around her and pulled her into him. She was glad that they hadn't tied her hands, as she locked her arms around his neck, all but climbing into his lap. He twitched slightly and she wondered what wound of his she had just aggravated. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." She answered, inhaling his scent and relaxing when she did, the familiarity of it comforting her. "Are you…" she stopped herself because she knew she had to see for herself what had been done to him, for he would only lie.

There was a possibility that he looked better than he was because of the dwindling light, or maybe they hadn't really done that much to him. His face and his arms were marred with purple-yellow bruises and deepened cuts. The collar of his shirt was torn in two places. There were dark bags under his eyes. She ran a hand along his cheek, felt the veins in his temple jump. "What they did to me is nothing compared to what they're doing to Sawyer right now."

It was meant as reassurance that he was okay but it only managed to upset her. Though she did not love Sawyer in the way one might think, she still cared for him. "Alex said they didn't need him."

"That's what Sawyer kept telling me. That they were taking most of it out on him. He said something about a…gift." He sounded confused on the last word. "Do you know what they're talking about?"

She shook her head vehemently, "No. They said Walt had it too." Kate was fairly sure there was nothing special about herself, same with Jack. At least not anything these people would want. Walt however was another story. "Sayid said he saw Walt in the jungle. And Shannon swore up and down that she had too. You don't think he was actually there, like manifesting himself?"

"That's insane. There's no way that's possible." He wrote it off without a second thought. Jack was the man of science and he relied on logic. This was illogical.

"The same thing goes for that polar bear. And I know that was as real as us. I'm not saying we can pop up in all sorts of places, I think we would've noticed that by now, but maybe there is something that we don't know about." There was a time when these words would never have even formed in her head, much less left her lips, but this island had loosened her beliefs as to what could or couldn't happen.

"I just—" The sentence trailed off, and he let it die, having nowhere to go with that thought. His arms tightened around her. "I'm sorry, Kate. I didn't mean for this to happen. Sayid warned me about Michael, and he told me not to tell you and the others. I should've said something. I'm sorry I got you into this mess."

"Hey, it's not your fault." She told him, a smile gracing her lips for a moment. "You know how I am. I would've gone anyway. We all would've."

"I still should've told you." The finality in his statement told her that if she protested they would only continue to go around in circles, so she withheld any comments to the contrary.

A figure appeared in the doorway, and she squinted to see Alex, whose features were overtaken with urgency. "You have to go." Her words were directed towards Jack who looked up. He didn't move, although Kate could feel him tense. She wondered if he was thinking of fighting his way out now.

"Jack, go." She whispered, hard as it was to say. He looked to her, eyebrows knitted together. "We'll see each other again. Now go. If they find us…" she didn't think she had to finish that sentence for him to get the gist of what she was saying.

Slowly, he nodded, releasing his grip on her, only to cradle her face in his palms, and catch her lips with his, in a kiss just as hurried as their first. It was a kiss meant to convey that it wouldn't be the last, but at the same time deep in case it was. There was no knowing how things would turn out. They parted, and he rose, going towards Alex, but turning to her once more. "We'll get out of this." He didn't seem to care much that this was said in front of Alex.

"I know." She didn't but he needed to think she did. And she could lie to him, she'd done it to him enough over time. He was gone seconds later, escorted out by Alex.

She returned soon afterwards, among the shuffling outside that told her Sawyer was being brought back to his and Jack's hut. Or wherever it was they were being held. She kneeled by Kate. "I'm sorry he couldn't stay longer but they were coming."

Kate gave her a nod of understanding. Then locking eyes with the teenager, she said, "Thank you." And she meant it with every fiber of her being. She would be able to go on now, knowing that she wasn't alone here. That Jack and Sawyer were alive, that Jack was attempting to formulate a plan to get them out of there. She'd been given hope and in their situation there weren't many things better than that. For that she was grateful.

Alex gave her a small, shy, smile, like those weren't words she'd heard too often before replying, "You're welcome."


End file.
